The journalism "backgrounder" series listed below was prepared by the editorial staff of Environment Writer as part of the University of Rhode Island's Office of Marine Programs' (OMP) activities related to the international Census on Marine Life (CoML), itself the subject of one of the backgrounder pieces.

Supported by a grant to OMP from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the backgrounders address marine biodiversity generally along with issues ranging from the fate of ecologically important seamounts to risks posed by overfishing and the outlook for the seas' top predators.

• Understanding Marine Biodiversity (Download PDF, 41 kB | View HTML)
• The Census of Marine Life: An 'Unprecedented' Biological Research Effort (Download PDF, 50 kB)
• Ecological Consequences of Overfishing (Download PDF, 44 kB | View HTML)
• Covering Marine Biodiversity's Shifting Population (Download PDF, 32 kB)
• The Status of the Ocean's Top Marine Predators (Download PDF, 40 kB)
• Covering Marine Biodiversity ... and Seamounts (Download PDF, 43 kB | View HTML)